Welcome to a new year of sporadic book reports, reviews, and or synopses. As always we’ll begin with…
Fourscore
The present world seems to get smaller and smaller and China seems to get bigger and bigger. The author of World Without Rules (Robert Spalding, Retired AF Brig Gen) takes us on China’s budget path of world domination. Using non-military methods, cheap in monetary and human costs, China has been able to provoke other countries to react in expensive and time consuming counter measures.
Spalding digests a Chinese War Manual, Unrestricted Warfare, written in 1999 by two Chinese generals. The Chinese authors describe methods of non conventional war such as taking down the internet and interrupting the electrical grid. Provoking civil unrest, such as we’ve seen the past few years are examples.
Contemporary examples are providing the cartels with cheap fentanyl chemicals and other drugs and seeing the reactions of political leaders. The “We have to do something” are great political catch phrases. Tariffs that upset the economic well being of businesses are another while China finds other buyers. Agitating the US into reactions in the Caribbean that are costing millions of dollars to the US with very little to gain in the outcome.
President Trump is busy building the most expensive (but biggest and most beautiful) warship imaginable while Xi sails a couple ships past Taiwan. According to Spalding the US is busy fighting the last war while China has moved on.
I’m happy to mail this copy on, if anyone has any interest.
R C Dean
On the many drives between Tucson and Santa Fe for our move, I started listening to the audiobooks for Ken Scholes’ series The Psalms of Isaak. I’m really enjoying them, and will likely buy the books to finish the series even though I own the audiobooks (I’m early in the third book right now). It is set in a far future (possibly not our Earth at all), long after technological civilization has self-destructed and even the follow-on civilization of the Wizard Kings died at the hands of the death choir of mechanical automatons during a civil war. The story starts with the destruction of Windwir, the main city of the Named Lands where the survivors have settled, its great library, and the Androfrancine Order which basically runs the show, by an apocalyptic spell thought lost at the end of the previous age. Well written and paced, with a slew of interesting characters and good world-building, as the current age dies and the struggle for the next one begins. The series is also finished, which is nice. Can recommend.
CPRM
I am reading the X-Men Epic Collection series that gathers all the X-Men stories, even if they happened in other book titles, into one epic collection. The series releases out of order, because they have to find all the books that contain the stories. I get that. But I pre-ordered books 12 and 13. The thing is book 13 came out in November and book 12 comes out in January. What the fuck; they are releasing that close together and they still put them out of order? So, I then ordered book 4, which covers stories after another collection I have that covers most of the original run, so I can read 12 and 13 in order. To be clear, these cover stories that were published from 1970-1985; when most of you were already old men, but I was 2 in 1985 so I didn’t get to read any of these first hand.
DEG
Rifles on the Danube: Hungarian AK-Pattern Firearms 1959-2002“by László Becz – This book covers Hungarian AK development from the Communist days through post-Communist days. It has some interesting little anecdotes about Hungarian weapons development. The light blue plastic parts for the AKM-63 were due to Hungary having to go to the West to get plastic that met the necessary technical specifications. They needed a plausible cover story to get around Western export restrictions. So they got light blue dyed plastic from a place in Italy under the cover story of making household appliances. It was only later when Communist plastic production capabilities improved that the AKM-63 got darker colored plastic parts. The book covers more than just AK rifles. The book talks about rifle grenades, night sights, slings, magazines, magazine pouches, and tools. In the section on rifle grenades, the book talks about the Communist regime producing only tear gas rifle grenades during the final year of Communist rule due to fears of riots. The book is pretty well written. The appendix on abbreviations in the book is handy. The quality of construction is lower than in previous Headstamp books. The binding isn’t as well done as in previous books. I was worried about the binding breaking apart at times while I was reading the book.
An Armourer’s Perspective: .303 No. 4 (T) Sniper Rifle and the Holland & Holland Connection by Peter Laidler with Ian Skennerton: Peter Laidler was an armorer in the British Army starting in the 50s when the British still used the Lee-Enfield as its main rifle. In his work on the book, he talked to Holland & Holland workers who converted No. 4 rifles to sniper rifles. He briefly covers the conversion of No. 4 Trials rifles at Enfield as a base pattern for Holland & Holland to convert No. 4 rifles to No. 4 (T) sniper rifles. He doesn’t talk about conversions of No. 1 Mk VI rifles. He goes into detail about what Holland & Holland did for the conversion. He also goes into detail of the different scopes used. He briefly talks about Long Branch conversions of No. 4 Mk I* rifles to sniper rifles. He wraps up with coverage of the failed L8 (T) rifles and the successful L42A1.
Miskatonic Missives Volume I Number 2: H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow 19 March & 10 April 1934 The two letters are mostly about Lovecraft arranging a visit to Barlow in Florida. At the time, Barlow was a teenager in high school. Lovecraft didn’t know that until he arrived. Barlow and Lovecraft became friends to the point where Barlow was Lovecraft’s literary executor. The letters also touch on family history, Lovecraft’s concerns for Barlow’s father’s health (Barlow’s father probably had PTSD from being in the military), and literary discussions. The book’s deep dive into themes from the letters include some history, analysis of PTSD with respect to Lovecraft’s characters, and reprints of stories from Lovecraft’s contemporaries. From the reprints, I enjoyed Clark Ashton Smith’s “Charnal Gods” best.
Small Arms of WWII: United States of America by Ian McCollum – This is the first in a series of books about the small arms the Second World War belligerents used. This book covers the USA. It does not cover every small arm the USA used, just most of them. It covers handguns, rifles, machine guns, shotguns, and anti-tank weapons. It even includes a few experimental versions. It does not into depth of any of the arms. The photography is excellent. The photography does a good job showing details of each arm. The most interesting thing I did not know about before reading this book? The USA tried an experimental sheet metal version of the 1911 which went nowhere.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin: Much of this book reads how I imagine future biographies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump will be written by their supporters: “HE IS THE BESTEST MOSTEST PERFECTEST PERSON EVER AND ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS A MEAN POOPYHEAD!” That’s a bit hyperbolic, but the author’s fawning over Lincoln throughout much of the book was annoying. I can’t recall any section where the author actually criticized Lincoln, though it seemed like she wanted to when writing about his handling of General McClellan. The author is much more evenhanded when writing about Lincoln’s rivals for the presidency and his cabinet members. The pace at the beginning is slow, but it picks up as the book moves through the Civil War. If you can get over the obsequiousness towards Lincoln, it’s actually not a bad book.
Miskatonic Missives Volume I Number 3: H. P. Lovecraft to R. E. Howard 8 June 1932 – Sadly, this volume included some woke stuff. You didn’t know Lovecraft was a racist? Do you even Lovecraft bro? Same with Howard. So what? On the positive side, the book includes a William Lumley short story which Lovecraft extensively rewrote, almost making it Lovecraft’s own. Lovecraft refused money for his work. Lumley was a fan of Lovecraft who thought Lovecraft’s fiction was real. The volume ends with a reprint of a Howard story set in the Crusader Kingdoms. Despite the woke stuff in this volume, I liked it. And I still hope The HP Lovecraft Historical Society continues with this series.
A Collector’s View: The SMLE: Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, 1903-1989 Second Edition by Lance Lysiuk: The text is basically the same as the first edition. It covers the development of the SMLE from the prototypes through the end of production at Ishapore in the 1980s with am emphasis on identification. The book touches on a few side topics such as the Indian Rifles 2A and 2A1, bayonets, and accessories. The only differences I could find between the first and second edition are an expanded section on factory repair programs and new pictures.
Beau Knott
Charles Stross, The Laundry Files series re-read. James Bond meets H.P. Lovecraft. Much horror, very eldritch, embedded in British bureaucracy. An enjoyable series overall, so far I’ve re-read The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, The Fuller Memorandum, The Apocalypse Codex, The Rhesus Chart, The Annihilation Score, and The Nightmare Stacks.
There’s a new book in the series (2024), A Conventional Boy, that I’ve just finished. (Clearly, the video phase has wound down and I’m in reading mode again lol). It backfills some open questions, and is a perfectly cromulent Laundry Files tale. 2 shorter works fill out the book, one of which I’ve encountered before. Recommended, although prior familiarity with the series helps.
Robert Bennett Jackson, A Drop of Corruption — the second in the proposed trilogy of fantasy mysteries, Shadow of the Leviathan, although capable of standing alone. Very good, if not quite up to The Tainted Cup. Interesting to see body modifications in something other than a body-horror or high tech context. The horror is in the leviathans from which the modification extracts are drawn. Secrets and lies, politics and hierarchies. Recommended.
Glen Cook, Lies Weeping. Glen has picked back up the tales of the Black Company. There’s a lot of uncovering of doubts about prior certainties, much going on that promises a rich unfolding in future volumes. There’s even enough to change my view on Port of Shadows as being a throw-away. It very much seems not to be. Much history of the Domination, many plots and shenanigans, mostly only partially seen. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of the Black Company (which you should be, but this is not where you should start).
Breaking a self-imposed restriction on posting my philosophical readings, I’m going to recommend Nicolai Hartmann’s New Ways of Ontology. 145 pages of solid,readable philosophical thinking about “the problem of being.” Along the way he politely savages many philosophical notions that (mostly) desperately need it. It’s not a ‘heavy’ book, no footnotes, just a thinker in his prime laying out his groundwork by clearing out the underbrush and overgrowth. Programmatic rather than deeply technical or argumentative, although it becomes more so as it goes on. Highly recommended if philosophy interests you.
Related, I’ll highly recommend Roman Ingarden’s The Literary Work of Art. It also takes a ‘strata’ based approach, here to the analysis of literary works as such. I consider it a masterpiece, despite the woefully wrong-headed and inadequate treatment of language. (He’s done much much better elsewhere.) Hartmann’s New Ways set off the same kind of mental fireworks that LWA did on first reading, so many years ago.
DblEagle
As a “public service” I recently completed reading four books on the 2024 election between PPP/biden/Harris and OMB. After my liver finally detoxed enough I can write about the experience. Forgive me if PTSD kicks in. I’ll say it right up front- none of these is a classic like White’s Making of the President 1960 or Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 and still be widely read decades later. (I reread F&LCT72 in January of every presidental election year as a caution about the shit storm we will soon undergo.)
The first two books, Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes and Original Sin by Jack Tapper were very similar. First of all, Trump is almost entirely unmentioned- one of these tomes gave the assassination attempt in Butler only two short paragraphs, the other gave the attack around a page. PPP is the star both accounts orbit around. The second point is both books almost totally ignore biden’s actions during the first three years as the acting POTUS. The books pick up in the spring of 2024. The time before then is lost to history forever. To discuss the entire period from 21Jan21 until 2024 would not serve their narrative about how unknown others managed to hide the letters of transit biden’s mental state from a tough and oppositional MSM and the American people.
These books are only secondarily about the election; the books are trying to save the reputation of the MSM by gaslighting the American people. Everybody in both volumes was absolutely shocked during the debate that gambling was going on, that biden was mentally gone. The various authors are asking us to believe that while the American people (and the world) could tell PPP wasn’t there for his entire time in office- the people who interacted with him every day thought he was a combination of a human computer and master diplomat until he stepped on the stage in Atlanta. It wasn’t that the MSM suffered from TDS, it was that an ultra-small group of biden loyalists hid the reality from the MSM and their coworkers. I could round up the usual suspects, but this group is already aware of the failed MSM’s names.
It is fascinating to read how the Dem major donors, and various Congresscritters forced Moobs and Pelosi to act. Pelosi was as gimlet eyed as a mafia boss and carefully slid the blade of betrayal between PPP ribs from behind. Moobs at least went to biden and told him face to face, “It’s just business” and that he was through. Harris is revealed to being outwardly loyal but once the chalice is passed her way, she acts with precision, even during biden’s phone call to her, to wrap up her coronation before Obama and Pelosi can set up an alternate nominating process. After Harris starts campaigning biden keeps reminding her that he won’t tolerate any deviation and steps on her campaign interests at multiple points. The authors seem still surprised that Harris lost and feel that given more than 107 days she would have won. “Original Sin” goes into greater detail and seems to have had better access to the major players in the Dems drama.
The third book is 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf. It is a much more traditional and balanced campaign history. It covers all three campaigns throughout. For Trump it starts back in 2021 and his realization that biden’s allies were not satisfied with the White House, they wanted OMB behind bars and bankrupt. The book shows how Trump used the various prosecutions to solidify his base and freeze out primary opponents as well as the behind the scenes infighting that is the staple of any US campaign. The book also covers the Dems short primary process and how biden’s people manipulated the primary calendar to eliminate his opponents. The book gives plenty of pages to PPP and the machinations between the debate and his being shanked. After Harris is coronated the book returns to a back-and-forth narrative. The description about how her campaign people reacted to her performance on “The view” is instructive. They realized how she had just committed seppuku when she said she couldn’t think of what she would have differently than her failed boss. Harris is oblivious until it is explained to her. From what I read in all four books I have come to the realization that Harris isn’t less sentient than Senator Hirono, but has almost as much of the low cunning of HRC.
The fourth book is Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America by Jonathan Karl. This book has the most direct access to the major characters than the other three. The author and OMB have a long history and speak and speak to each other on the phone on a semi-regular basis. Make no mistake, the author is not a fan of Trump, but he has directly communicated with him for years. The author also speaks with Hunter biden and several other key players on a semi-regular basis. “2024” has the insider baseball stories of the campaign, escpecially OMB’s. But “Retribution” cover Trump’s Federal trial in much greater detail and the benefit of direct communication. “Retribution” uses the last 25% to cover the post election period of assembling the new administration- something the other books don’t cover.
In sum, the election is best covered in “2024”. “Retribution” is the best read if you are trying to see how Trump experiences the trial and the election. (Hunter biden’s views of how his father was sent to sleep with the fishes are also interesting.) The first two volumes overlap in their attempt to explain away the MSM’s failures to properly cover the so-called biden Administration and the unseen people attempting to retain power. Tapper’s is a bit better written, but either volume can make you feel a bad kind dirty if you are seen reading them. If you waiting for a truthful examination of whomever was running the country in the four years between the Trump administrations you’ll need to keep waiting.
The Hyperbole
The Classic Collection of Fredric Brown (11 Novels and 60 Short Stories). Illustrated: Detectives, Thrillers, Science Fiction **** I’ve read seven of the novels so far. 3 Am and Ed hunter detective novels and four Thrillers. all good noir-ish/”Old timey radio”-ish stories. It was a 99¢ Kindle book and there are a few error and typos but it’s still a heck of a bargain.
This House of Burning Bones by Stuart MacBride 2025 ***¾ Book 13 of the Logan McCrae. Solid Scottish police procedural/murder mystery. as usual MacBride mixes violent crimes with goofball humor, he a lefty and his politics are fairly evident so if defending immigrants and the occasion swipe at Trump/conservative bugs you in a work of fiction you shoud probably skip this one.
Spoiler’s Prey by Robin Blake 2025 **** Cragg and Fidelis Book 9. set in 1748 Cragg a coroner and his friend Fidelis a doctor investigate the murder and land snatching. Kind of like Holmes and Watson but Cragg isn’t a detective he merely tries to collect all the facts and then lay them before a jury. Blake must be a bit of a historian as the details of the laws and customs of 18 century England are part of what make these books so entertaining. Assuming that is that he just isn’t making everything up.
King of Ashes: A Novel S.A. Cosby 2025 *** A Southern Noir set in central Virginia, Gangsters and drug dealers and murders and torture. Not one of Cosby’s better efforts but enjoyable enough.
As always… of now.
Remember if you would like to be included with all the cool kids email your reviews , criticisms , and or synopsis to whatarewereading25@proton.me by the last Monday of next month. Whenever. We’ve become unstuck in time regarding the scheduling so I’ll just wait until five or six of you people send in submission and then throw together the next edition.
Thanks and good luck, The Hyperbole.
Just finished Dark Diamond by Neal Asher. The first book in what will eventually be a trilogy.
If you like Asher you’ll like it – Mr. Crane, Ian Cormac, etc., you’ll enjoy. If you haven’t read his other books, you will be lost. Start with Polity Agent or Prador Moon.
That’s next on my fiction reading list. It looks like it’s a sequel to the series about Penny Royal, right?
Yes. The second book of the series “Dark Agent” will be out in May.
Penny Royal’s legacy is lurking around in this one.
I just finished that recently as well. Nice to be reunited with old characters.
The series is also finished, which is nice.
George R. R. Martin hardest hit.
James Bond meets H.P. Lovecraft.
That sounds intriguing.
Imagine the British took Hitler’s occult fascinations seriously. Image the group responsible for investigations & defense were Brit Civil Servants. Oh, and the Stars Will Be Right in maybe 30 years, maybe less.
It’s a fun series.
I hated the shift away from Bob, though. I haven’t read the last few entries but maybe I’ll give it another shot.
I’ll look for it when I reduce the unread book piles slightly.
Currently reading Via Alpina Sacra which basically a travelogue of a Catholic priest’s hike through various pilgrimage sites in the Alps. Before that I read Giants in the Earth which was about some Norwegian pioneer families that settled in eastern South Dakota.
Finished Pandora’s Star by Peter Hamilton, currently about 2/3 of the way through the second book of the series, Judas Unchained.
I have pandoras star. Haven’t started reading it as I hate not having the next book in a series. Good?
I’ve been enjoying it.
That’s a man, baby!
Diff’rnt Strokes indeed.
I’ve been reading Prince Arvid’s Periplus, a long book looking for a better title and the remaining 90% of the text. I have broken the curse where no story makes it to Khainoskhora, though the title character isn’t there just yet.
I’m finally back to reading, mostly because it’s part of my concussion therapy, and also I finally found a good book.
Currently, it’s Chapter and Verse by Bernard Sumner. I previously read Peter Hook’s book about New Order (he has another one about Joy Division that I didn’t read). Bernard’s book has a much different tone, and I’m curious to see his side of the conflict with Hook. I’m just into the part where they diagnose Ian Curtis with epilepsy, and it’s heart wrenching. Once I finish this book, I can write a review of both.
I really enjoy reading multiple accounts of the same events. I’ve read books by two Blackhawks players from the 90’s and that was fantastic.
Fuck, this already? I’ve backslid. Purchased more books, read less.
Picked up a reprint Betty Crocker cookbook. Fair more enjoyable than most recipes or cookbooks. Zero nutritional information or allergy warnings. Huzzah.
I can’t recommend this more highly.
https://www.tofugu.com/reviews/japanese-the-manga-way/
If you want to learn day to day language and be able to understand movies and drama this is really useful. It teaches things that aren’t in textbooks.
I have it! It’s… collecting dust.
もったいない
🙇♂️
Maybe when Japanese the Gravure Way is released? Or「AV no nihongo」video series..
行く!
I’ve been working through the revised edition of The Craft of the Cocktail. I have opinions.
I have stepped up from the Berenstain Bears (although the girl got three more for Christmas) and have advanced to children’s chapter books.
I am currently reading How to Train Your Dragon book one of 12.
The only thing the movies did not change is the names of the characters and the fact that there are Vikings and dragons.
Not the Bearenstein Bears?
Barrenstein
Barrista?
‘I thought they were Jewish!’
https://jweekly.com/2020/12/07/since-when-are-the-berenstain-bears-evangelical-christians-and-do-i-still-want-them-in-our-neighborhood-library/
I savor the hand wringing. “
I always thought throwing some Berenstain Bears books in a collection, was just harmless bland filler. But it seems to me, that underneath the sunny and plain facade, lurks an intention to create internalized dogmatic and patriarchal values in every child. I am not here for it.”
https://readwithriver.ca/2020/07/18/insidious-oatmeal-the-hidden-dogma-of-the-berenstain-bears/
Threedoor:
Mary McAleese: Baptism denies babies their human rights
In case you didn’t see this very special argument.
I have a problem with infant baptism, but that comes from being from a baptist background.
I figured your problem was that baptism isn’t subject to the single land tax. :-p
The original “How to Train Your Dragon” movie is my all-time favorite. Because of it I bought and read all the books. There’s one other similarity between the books and the movie but I’m not going to spoil it for you.
Boy is reading book 12.
My wife had to stop him from dropping a spoiler last night.
RIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin
Apropos of nothing, I’ve been to this Vermont Buddhist retreat a few times:
https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/shambhala-usa-faces-new-lawsuit-in-vermont-alleging-systemic-sexual-abuse-and-negligence/
I never saw anything questionable but they’re practitioners of an extreme form of Buddhism and I’m not surprised:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana
That sounds like something I’ve seen on a cop show.
I read The Riddle-Master of Hed and i like it. interesting fantasy world, and proper mysterious magic, none of that Brandon Sanderson crap.
And here I was thinking that you had good taste, Pie…
beyond the stupid magic Sanderson is a weak writer and his fans are dodoheads
I see we’re moving from mere bad taste to out-and-out insanity.
Tell me, do you think Robert Heinlein was a closet fascist as well?
Heinlein was a fine fellow
But a terrible author.
He was never in the closet about it.
Glad you enjoyed Riddle-Master, Pie!
I love that trilogy. Bite me, ES.
A little different — but you might enjoy Barbara Hambly’s Winterlands books — at least Dragonsbane (things get a little weird later in the series… but that one starts really really well).
Good choice, Pie.
I’m on the fifth book of “The Pendragon Cycle”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pendragon_Cycle
It’s an attempt to give the Arthur and Merlin myth a fictional historical context starting with the Fall of Atlantis. I was surprised at how overtly Christian the story was until I learned the original publisher was of a Christian orientation. A TV series based on the first two books will debut on the 22nd:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pendragon_Cycle:_Rise_of_the_Merlin
wait there are no libraries in one room off the grid cabins so how can you read things?
Tablet!
The walls of the cabin are all bookshelves.
+10 R value.
LOL! I have two shelves of books in the cabin holding my very best personal favorites. More shelves and boxes of books are in my shed.
The inside books are predominately Terry Pratchett and Neal Stephenson.
I really enjoyed that one, Lawhead forced the Christian angle into all of his books. While it worked for the Arthurian cycle, it really fell flat when he did his series on Celtic myth.
Watching the trailer for the series, I’m at least intrigued enough to give it a shot if I can watch it without paying.
I am a weak sad pathetic man. I had resolved to drink no alcohol during weekdays this week, and after 3 days off the sauce here I am on my third scotch.
But next week no alcohol on weekdays.
*narrator whisper* Unbeknownst to him, ee have secretly replaced all of Pie’s days with weekdays. Lets see if he notices.
Pie’s reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQKVDUBu2g
You need to be more stoic and not set yourself unrealistic resolutions.
I _really_ wanted a glass of wine with dinner last night but I persevered. Halfway through the month…
One of the local wineries is advising people to celebrate “Damp January.”
I blame the weekdays, not the scotch.
#metoo
Unrelated comment, but maybe someone knows – where’s a good place to pick up some cheap unlocked cellphones?
need a new drugs-and-hookers phone? yeah me too
Pie is a funny drunk, not a mean drunk.
whoawhoawoa 3 scotches is nowhere near drunk
Exactly.
Depends on how big each of those scotches is.
40 ml standard size.
Standard drink sizes are not metric.
40 ml standard size.
That’s a small bottle.
Scotch is supposed to be measured in fingers.
FB Marketplace. No, I’m not kidding.
I don’t have access to Facebook.
You DO have “access” to FB. You choose not to do so. There is a difference.
Which is a perfectly valid and reasonable choice, I might add.
Maybe he was banned for thoughtcrime.
I was, indeed, banned for thoughtcrime. I think.
I also like having nothing to do with social media anymore.
I apparently am guilty of thought-crime, and am unable to establish a bookface account, even though I’ve never had one in the past.
I tried this past year to set one up, solely for the marketplace, and was immediately thrown in jail.
Yes. Acting as if social media doesn’t exist would be a good place for everyone to be. The shit is brain poison.
Unfortunately, the baseball league I help run is near fully dependent on social media, so I have 1 remaining account that I actually use. I also have an IG account, but that’s exclusively so my wife can send me funny reels that we watch together.
Have you tried calling a Washington DC pawn shop?
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/former-congressional-employee-arrested-indicted-theft-240-cell-phones?
I’ve sold on swappa before, but have never bought.
Authoritative voice
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized President Trump for flipping off a factory worker during a tour of a Ford F-150 plant in Michigan this week, but said it was consistent with Trump’s policies toward the industry’s workforce.
The worker, 40-year-old TJ Sabula, shouted at the president during his walk through the factory on Tuesday, calling him a “pedophile protector.” In response, Trump mouthed “f— you” twice and raised his middle finger to the worker.
During a talk at the Detroit Auto Show on Wednesday, Buttigieg responded to a question about his views on the incident.
“President Trump did literally what I believe he’s been doing figuratively for some time, which is give auto workers the finger,” Buttigieg said, calling Trump a “union buster.”
“He has presided over the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country, and then when somebody sees someone as powerful as him come into their workplace, he gives them the old F.U.,” Buttigieg said. “In some ways, it’s uh, it’s just in character for him to be that way. And obviously, my sympathies are with the worker and not the president.”
Mayor Petey, friend and protector of the common man.
I wonder if anybody asked him about Ford’s twenty billion dollar EV blind alley write-off.
Compare and contrast with “Let’s go Brandon!”
Biden didn’t understand what people meant.
Everything is so goddamn exhausting these days. These people are fucking retarded.
Yes, it is exhausting in its predictability. Not a single insight or original thought. You don’t look smart or witty if you just reflexively disagree with someone 100% of the time.
Given that he grew a beard solely because Vance had a beard and that Newsome and company swear because they think voters voted for Trump because he swears, why would he have a problem with and obscene gesture?
It’s a good damned thing I can be my own IT support, but I’m ALSO glad I didn’t have to troubleshoot Python because ew.
The only book I’ve been reading at all is the classic Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls by Allen Strange. It was the pre-eminent college textbook for modular synthesis for a long time.
The last print was in 1983. The book used to be very difficult to source, and used to be very expensive when you could find it.
But a Canadian academic worked out a deal with the author’s estate to print a new version through some form of academic printing license and bring the book back to life. Good stuff.
IMNSHO, the best technique in the book is
Signal to multi-mode filter
Filter lp out to mix in 1
Filter hp out to frequency shifter in
Freq shift downshift to mix in 2
Tarted up with envelope generators and vca’s, one can get very interesting brass sounds, amongst countless others. Use of the Serge/Random Source Variable Slope Filter gives a lot of scope for subtlety.
From the ded thred:
Fortunately, although there are 2 congresscritters from my state who voted for the foreign aid bullshit, mine is not one of them. Mine will be running for McConnell’s seat this year, though I might hope that Daniel Cameron will win.
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-crackdown-minnesota-shootings-renee-good-a0c368079c106b599245996fded8c1b9
Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act to end protests in Minneapolis
How are the ongoings in MN not an insurrection?
It’s not TEAM RED supporters blocking FedGov here.
Your way out is very simple, Jake, Keith, Timmy. Instruct the police departments in your state to comply with federal immigration hold orders and cooperate with ICE agents carrying out their lawful duties.
Despite being the obvious answer, it’ll never happen.
Without RESISTING they have nothing.
Giving a logical and reasonable answer ain’t gonna help you here my guy. From the government officials to the Karens to the Karens’ simps they’ve broken with reality.
The foot soldiers have broken from reality. But the cynical people pulling the strings are pushing provoke, provoke, provoke to make Trump look bad going into the midterms. Not a single one of them has any interest in improving things, they just want their power back. And they don’t care how many people are hurt or killed to do so, because it’s nobody they know.
Sure TOK, it’s the cynical and the useful idiots. Seeing people who are largely too stupid to know they’re not smart acting out in the streets in service to politicians and shotcallers a sad sight to see in a way.
I blame Ken Kesey
Modern civil commitment law was catastrophically distorted after O’Connor v. Donaldson in 1975. That decision held — correctly — that mental illness alone is insufficient to justify confinement. But courts and legislatures converted that narrow holding into a massively destructive rule that there would be no commitments without a dangerous act, followed by an adversarial hearing, and even then for only the briefest possible detention.
The predictable result was not liberty. It was the mass emptying of long-term psychiatric hospitals.
Extreme stories of abuse were used to justify dismantling an entire system of care. This was the exception fallacy in its purest form — generalizing rare abuses in order to abolish long-term treatment altogether.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess Rob Reiner’s son was not merely a charming eccentric.
Well, you can’t deny someone their freedom just because they’re nuts.
Says who?
On what basis would you restrict the freedom of someone that is not harming or threatening to harm someone else?
‘Accountability’ is the star to steer by here.
If someone can’t be held responsible for their actions after the fact, it seems that it would be reasonable to restrict their freedom to act before the fact.
I think I’m with ES on this. I’ve seen the insides of a psychiatric facility. Many of those I saw could not have been held accountable for their actions because they were not in control of their faculties in any way compatible with a social society that has shared rules with individual responsibility to abide by them.
All right. Let’s go with Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Incompetence (lack of accountability) is not a valid defense.
You’re guilty, you go to lockup. You can divert the nut cases to an asylum if you want.
ot harming or threatening to harm someone else untiull they randomly snap and stab someone like the crazy are wont to do in the US
That’s pretty much what we have now, and the reason that prisons have become the default storage units for the severely mentally ill.
Perhaps the best approach is to expand the prison system, and have a functioning psychological treatment system laid on top of it.
I’m not even convinced we have a functional prison system. Adding on top of an already bad model doesn’t seem likely to work out.
Perhaps the best approach is to expand the prison system, and have a functioning psychological treatment system laid on top of it.
Agreed.
Emptying the asylums was the right answer in my opinion. Failing to fix the prison system was a major oversight.
We need to deal with 1) evil people (prison); 2) crazy people (institution); and 3) crazy evil people (isolation in prison I guess).
‘Evil people’ should be replaced with ‘stupid people’ The vast majority of crime is committed by barely functional retards, who are too stupid to understand consequences or draw lessons from past incidents.
Evil people just go into politics or finance (or occasionally IT systems integration.)
MW is right though – we’d need major, major prison reform before even contemplating this step.
Some men you just can’t reach
Point taken on stupid versus evil.
There are people both stupid and evil (bipartisan if you will).
Evil and intelligent base criminality hasn’t really been a thing since the Mafia was dismantled.
Or – They learned from the Mafia’s mistakes and are less visible.
Mmm. There’s still other organized crime, and the upper echelons of that are going to be fairly bright. People who do computer crime? There might be a few old-school petermen left out there.
But yeah, intelligence and criminality are usually mutual exclusive.
If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act can he please toss Walz in jail?
This condition has a name: anosognosia. It is a brain-based defect of insight, common in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and psychotic bipolar disorder, in which the neural systems required for self-awareness simply do not function. The patient does not disagree with the diagnosis — he or she is incapable of perceiving illness at all.
Incapable of self-awareness, you say…
So virtually all of the left right now, who are metaphorically shoving sticks in their bicycle wheels and blaming Trump?
Today in fitness thoughts
doomer
@uncledoomer
there’s nothing I hate more than when women incorporate whimsy into things like exercise, which should be nothing but suffering
https://x.com/uncledoomer/status/2011604634784448646
That’s been around a long time. My mom went to those little trampoline classes back in the early 80s.
There’s a lot of fucking energy being expended there. If you don’t think that’s exercise, you’re nuts. 😉
Definitely.
Welp, I’m stuck in Rochester NY until morning thanks to a snow delay of my planned flight to JFK that would have me miss the flight to Seattle.
So I am now going to venture into Rochester for lunch and then settle in at the airport hotel when checkin begins at 3pm.
Restaurant recommendations welcome.
New return flight will route through Detroit, so that breaks up the flight a little better (a little leg stretching).
Glad Monday is a day off.
Since I was a college student when I lived in the area, my restaurant recommendations are from that era. I don’t know what if any dietary restrictions you have.
In subs DiBellas would be my go to at the time, but I think they’ve been forced to cut costs, but are still decent.
If you want Rochester “Culture” find one of the places selling Garbage Plates (or Trash Plates) Nick Tahou’s being the archetypical one. It is about as healthy as the name suggests.
DiBellas is now a pretty wide spread chain. There’s at least three of them that I know of in the Cleveland area.
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Seconded. I haven’t been back to Rochester in years but my brother raves about it.
I can imagine worse places to be stuck.
But not many of them.
Also, it seems that space laser science firms are gluttons for punishment, locating themselves in places like WA and NY. Either that, or they’re there to get the easy taxbux.
But not many of them. – you obviously never visited Pașcani
Also, why come you not been in da glibzooms?
Mostly because the boyfriend moved up to Seattle so we have been together most Saturdays!
Also I quit drinking and needed to avoid triggers until I had established new habits. 👍
I was on glibzoom last week.
there’s nothing I hate more than when women incorporate whimsy into things like exercise, which should be nothing but suffering
But yoga pants are okay, right?
Right?
Natürlich.
Depends on the wearer.
Asshole wants to be trusted around the puppy again. Dog had been ignoring them or outright vicious but when they forced their way back towards the dog the dog caved and got friendly with them. For now.
It may last even for a few weeks or months even though doubtful on that front. But this shit is going to blow up. Any hope of just keeping the dog in the kennel when I’m not there away from them until I work something out or figure shit out is gone. Dog is going to cry to go be with them and leaving work every time to go stop it is just…yea it’s not going to happen. At this point asshole doesn’t even have to try to set the dog off just any confusion could cause it.
Horrible. I read your comments from the other night. I’d be getting another roommate at that point.
On what basis would you restrict the freedom of someone that is not harming or threatening to harm someone else?
There are powerful indicators in some cases. We’re not talking about mass institutionalization of random oddballs. But there are people who cannot be trusted to observe the most basic rules of civilization.
The devil is, as always, in the details.
At what point is crazy behavior a realistic threat to the health and welfare of others. Show that, and then lock them up.
You have to wait until at least one random woman is stabbed to death on a subway.
I don’t think it is necessary to wait to that point to determine that someone has become crazy enough to be a legitimate threat to others.
If everyone was armed, individuals could make that determination on the spot.
Well, yeah, you kinda do. Ask anyone who’s been relentlessly stalked by someone with more time, money, obsession, subtlety, evil, and patience than sense. Or an out-of-control public nuisance.
“I need to make a report. This guy is harassing me.”
“hE hAsNt DoNe AnYtHiNg AgAiNsT tHe LaW yEt.”
Correct. I would advise anyone (especially women) in that situation to get a restraining order signed by Smith & Wesson. Why the guy who was killed (in the above story) didn’t approach the Crazy armed, I will never understand.
Oh, I also meant to say that yes, I did have a stalker once AND I had a lecherous boss.
I told the stalker if he showed up anywhere in my vicinity, he’d get a bullet in his head before he could knock.
I innocently, cheerfully, and very air-headedly told my lecherous boss this story.
They both got the message.
“armed, individuals could make that decision on the spot.”. Then you risk what happened in Butler and in Utah. You get a “Bleeding Kansas” nationwide.
“On what basis would you restrict the freedom of someone that is not harming or threatening to harm someone else?”
Pretty much anyone I don’t like should be enough reason.
“Hey, hey, leggo me, I din’t do nuthinn!”
Damn, some people misunderstood what I meant.
Just got around to Devon Eriksen’s Theft of Fire, which I think someone here recommended. Quite enjoyed it, honestly. Thanks to whomever it was that mentioned it at some point in the distant past….
I probably wasn’t the first but I’m sure I threw in my support. Eagerly waiting for the sequel.
Mrs. Erikson, responding to one of his tweets?
Which one?
(He has two wives.)
I’m trying to read a new Science fiction Hugo award winner.
A Memory Called Empire is a 2019 science fiction novel, the debut novel by Arkady Martine. It follows Mahit Dzmare, the ambassador from Lsel Station to the Teixcalaanli Empire, as she investigates the death of her predecessor and the instabilities that underpin that society. The book won the 2020 Compton Crook Award and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
So far it is interesting, but definitely not a hard sci-fi book. It looks at language, grammar, and custom, things that are intertwined with the politics of conquest and the broader culture.
Modern Hugo’s have become an anti-recommendation for me, sadly.
You may want to check out the aforementioned Theft of Fire if you want some harder sci-fi.
I enjoyed it. The sequel has the most singularly unique aliens sinc James White’s ‘Hospital Ship’ stories.
A lot of what’s commonly considered ‘hard’ sci-fi incorporates science that is as soft as Charmin toilet tissue. Looking in your directions, Neal Asher, Ian Cormac…
Agreed, which I why I wrote “harder”; I quite enjoyed the chase in Theft of Fire and a description of the chase that at least acknowledges physics.
Sure. I probably should have been more clear – it’s perfectly fine to enjoy a sci-fi or sci-fantasy story that doesn’t have ‘hard’ pretensions.
I am reading the second book in Rick Atkinson’s American Revolutionary War series. I am really enjoying it and will have a report for next months’ What Are We Reading.
His WWII trilogy was very good.
I wish he would do the civil war before he stops writing.
“armed, individuals could make that decision on the spot.”. Then you risk what happened in Butler and in Utah. You get a “Bleeding Kansas” nationwide.
Let’s ask that guy who subdued a threatening crazy person on the subway how that works out.
They wanted to send a massage with that one didn’t they? Then again, that’s per for the course in New York.
Also, I wish someone would send me a massage. My back hasn’t been quite right since I got back from Utah…
Just because one is armed and capable, doesn’t mean that all his (or her) problems are solved…
Uffda! I hate these articles because everyone is reading stuff to make them smarter and I’m reading trash.
You folx are reading good stuff and I’m plodding my way through Joe Abercrombie (Age of Madness series), Elmore Leonard and Tony Hillerman books.
I have two half-finished books on my desk. They haven’t been touched in a month or so. I just play solitaire and hit refresh on Glibs. My mind is fried at this point.
Joe Abercrombie is great. Elmore Leonard is one of the greatest American fiction writers ever to put pen to paper.
Wat?
Is Paramount so broke they can’t pay for more bots than that?
Hot. Garbage.
I’m shocked.
That’s over 1,200 more than I expected.
Better yet, half were YouTube reviewers waiting to savage the series.
a live premiere that peaked at roughly 1,300 concurrent viewers.
There are more people than that watching hot laps from the Chili Bowl.
I recently devoured Servants of War by Larry Correia & Steve Diamond; I’m a big fan of Correia but usually avoid the collabs – I’m glad I made an exception here. I really, really liked it. Per Larry’s recent ‘TL;DR’ blog post: “Servants of War – This kid who is not autistic but needs glasses gets to drive a giant robot with magic. Also lots of rats eating people.”.
I also ran through God’s Junk Drawer by Peter Clines and Terminus by the same (but might have mentioned that last WAWR?). The former was a fun riff on Land of The Lost, sort of.
I was going to be more of an adult and (finally) read The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester but then I saw the next (last?) Dresden Files book is out soon so I’m going to re-read the last couple since I’ve completely forgotten the details of what happened.
I’m in a weird psychological space.
Though my parents weren’t strict observers, I was raised Southern Baptist. The kind where dancing is frowned upon. The kind where my grandmother called my mother in the middle of the night to blast her for “allowing” me (23 years old at the time) to travel with my then girlfriend of several years to visit her family in Brazil because we weren’t yet married. I was active in church until high school when I realized there’s a whole lot of hypocrisy I didn’t want anything to do with. My pastor was caught fucking the wives of men with terminal diseases, who were seeing him for religious counseling to help deal with that sort of thing. The adults in church were supremely judgmental. Etc.
Though I know Christian values have made up my entire worldview, and I hold no quarrel with those who choose to worship (along with a deep loathing of those who demean Christianity, as is the proper “educated” thing to do), I also have no interest in any sort of return to the church. Yet I also know that people having left church en masse has been a net negative on society. Christianity has been a tremendously positive force for mankind overall, despite its many shortcomings, and its influence has waned tremendously, which has led to a decay in society as a whole. Its traditions glued us together in various ways, forging western society for near 2000 years, and that glue has been melted away slowly for at least the last 75 years; its influence and guiding hand replaced with academic claptrap. We’ve lost something valuable. A stabilizing force and sense of real community and connection.
In many ways I miss the stabilizing presence of traditions, and I know I’ve been a part of that destabilization. Within 3 generations my line of the family has gone from strict observers in a strict sect to no religion at all. My kids know nothing of church. In many ways, I made sure of that.
More recently I suggested to my oldest, while he is at a catholic university, to, at the very least, investigate its presence on campus. Go sit in the chapel (that is literally just outside of his dorm) and think. Check out a Sunday Mass. Not so much because he might be strengthened spiritually, though that would be a positive thing, but so that he might have some firmer grounding in some form of tradition, which is something sorely missing in our family outside of the observance of Opening Day. A way to find those who might share his values, which despite not having been raised in church are grounded in Christianity (at least the non-spiritual parts of its teachings). As a way to find a community that, at the very least knows the difference between a man and a woman, and doesn’t actively try to subvert our natural roles as men and women. A pathway towards discovering traditions and values that, in many ways, I made sure he never knew.
Traditions are important, and we’re losing them quickly, alongside the sanity of our polity as a whole. Those traditions ground us in our past, even if we don’t fully understand them. I definitely subscribe to the view that traditions are solutions to problems we’ve long since forgotten about, and that the purposeful unraveling of those traditions is at the core of many of our modern problems, like the unwillingness of far too many to see the differences between men and women and acknowledge our natural roles. Instead we have a society where OnlyFans is seen as a proper career path. A society where men have been demonized and largely shuttered away.
How does one reconcile the two competing ideas that 1. a society where women fucking themselves with dildos on OnlyFans at the behest of fairly disgusting men, many of them becoming wildly rich, is a sign of vast societal decay, and 2. there’s nothing inherently wrong with consensual dildoing?
Get out of my head!
Seriously, although not as strict, I was raised Catholic and attended mass weekly, did the sacraments, etc.
Like you, I don’t have any interest in returning to church myself but I also think the loss of tradition is a net loss for society.
Similarly with your consensual dildoing being a sign of our accelerating decay and also being inherently OK.
I have no good answers.
The answer is go to church. Preferably Catholic Church, but at least go.
I would have to find a church for people who don’t believe in the supernatural.
I suspect any such ‘church’ would be loaded with annoying proggies…
Unitarian it is!